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Business & Tech

LEC Fitness: Let's Get Physical, and Much More

Kingstown trainer LaRue Cook teaches that strong muscles lift weights and spirits.

“I’m a big believer in the connection between the mind and body,” said personal trainer LaRue Cook. “I have lots of anecdotal proof in working with several of the clients that … making them comfortable with being able to overcome some physical discomfort such as exercise, will help them mentally become stronger.”

Since 1993, Cook has been coaching people to become stronger through his LEC Fitness business. Whether a client wants to lose 20 pounds by a special date or win a tennis trophy, Cook can help them succeed. He is a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist, a Licensed Sportsmetrics™ Injury Prevention Trainer, a Sports Performance Trainer, and a Certified Youth Conditioning Specialist.

Cook’s not quite sure what sparked his love of health and fitness, but he remembers when.

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“I started lifting when I was 7,” he said, chuckling as he remembers his youth on the South Side of Chicago. “I asked my parents for a set of weights so I could start exercising, and of course they thought that for me it was just a passing fancy so they didn’t buy me weights. Until one day they came home and I was laying in the middle of the living room floor lifting encyclopedias.” He got the weights, and “ever since then I’ve been exercising.”

Degrees in health science and physical education were followed by a graduate degree in health care/hospital administration. With that he landed a position at Howard University Hospital in the District. It was October of 1978. He’d spent about a week on the road after a residency in Texas, and getting situated in the Washington Metropolitan Area, when fate dropped a weight on him that no one should have to lift. His fiancée back home in Chicago had been killed in a car accident. Back then there were no cell phones or Internet.

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“By the time I was able to [contact her family] everything had been done, it was over,” Cook said. “Here I am in a new city, by myself, starting a new position as a hospital administrator so it was a pretty heavy duty position…. It was a tough, tough period.”

“I think that what helped me was being a lifelong exerciser, and athlete, and competitor,” Cook said. “It was very hard to do. It took me a long, long, long time, but I think I was able to sort of fight through it…. A lot of people, including myself, will go into a situation doubting that they’re going to be able to survive it or accomplish something. When they start to accomplish those little steps in their physical health and their condition … the transition into your emotional, and mental and psychological health is tremendous.”

Cook is still single. He has lived in the Kingstowne Area for a decade, and likes the fitness opportunities here. But like every good trainer he’s pushing for more. “It could become more fitness friendly if they had more bike paths,” he said, but he quickly added that “there are actually several good parks in the area that lend themselves to people getting outside.”

*****

LaRue Cook, LEC Fitness

Fitness training by appointment, 703-217-2309, http://www.lecfitness.com/

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